Real Deal: U.S. History Uncensored - Introduction

INTRODUCTION TO - U.S. HISTORY
UNCENSORED: What Your High School Textbook Didn’t Tell
YouBy Carolyn Baker,
Ph.D.

U.S. History
Uncensored

INTRODUCTION:

American
inventor and entrepreneur, Henry Ford, is famous not only
for his astounding success in making the automobile
available to nearly every American family in the 1920s, but
also for his famous quote: “History is bunk.” Many
historians, offended by Ford’s abrupt dismissal of the
subject, defensively retort that history is not bunk and set
out to prove their “case” regarding the relevance and
significance of the study of history.

The reader may be
surprised to learn that on one level, I agree with Ford. A
few years ago while browsing the titles in the history
section of my local bookstore, my eyes fell upon James
Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your
American History Textbook Got Wrong. Instantaneously, I
snatched the book from the shelf and began frantically
shuffling through its pages. Presently, I realized that
Loewen had elucidated the exasperation of countless teachers
of American history, and I could barely wait to get the book
home where I could pore over his words without interruption.
A sociologist by trade, Loewen articulates brilliantly the
effects upon a society when its citizens are ignorant of
their history and shines an almost blinding light on some of
the most sacrosanct American historical legends.

By and
large, Americans do not consider themselves ignorant of
their history. Yet, most are still under the influence of
grammar-school indoctrination in the “discovery” of
America by Columbus and the myth of George Washington’s
confession to his father that he, indeed, could not tell a
lie and did, in fact, cut down the cherry tree. Sadly, in
the technologically-obsessed twenty-first century, any
knowledge of history beyond these mythical snippets is
considered“onerous” or simply “extraneous” to
the “real” world.

Overwhelmingly, what I hear from my
college history students is that high school history was
boring, irrelevant, and largely taught to them by teachers
who had little or no passion for the subject. The classic
situation is the high school coach who is hired to supervise
athletic programs on the condition that he/she teaches a
designated number of social studies courses of which history
usually comprises the majority.

In my own experience, high
school history was taught by male coaches who
authoritatively lectured about U.S. history as a parent
would a child, then barked commands, like: “All right,
everybody be quiet and write the answers to the questions on
Page 29.” While we submissively complied, the coach sat at
his desk, clipboard and pencil in hand, diagramming football
plays, resentfully offering obligatory answers to any
questions we might ask.

Nevertheless, some of us, thanks
to stimulating college instructors, learned to love history.
We studied the subject in the context of the social upheaval
and cultural transformation of the 1960s and 70s. Moreover,
in awe-stricken wonder at the relevance of history to our
lives and our world, we vowed that our teaching of it would
be passionate, vital, and illuminating. We could not wait to
incite a similar voracity for historical knowledge in our
students.

So upon all of the above I reflect when I hear
Henry Ford’s proclamation that history is bunk. I believe
that rather than simply defending against Ford’s comment,
the diligent historian must analyze it more deeply. First,
we must ask ourselves what would cause someone to proclaim
that history is bunk? What more should we know about Ford
that might shed light on his dismissal of history? Is it not
extraordinarily relevant to understand that Ford was
passionately anti-semitic and an ardent admirer of Hitler?
In fact, when Hitler penned his infamous Mein Kampf,
a portrait of Ford rested on his writing desk.

What might
happen if this detail were included in conventional history
texts? Might it not lead to discussion of the reality that
Ford was only one of hundreds of corporate tycoons during
the 1930s who admired Hitler and helped finance his rise to
power? And if Ford was only one, who were the others? Why
did they support Hitler? How did they become admirers of the
most treacherous butcher in modern history? And what
happened to their support for Hitler during World War II and
after? Does their identification with his cause have
anything to do with the turn of events following World War
II or even the unfolding of events in the early twenty-first
century? Are there implications that connect with current
events such as the fact that at this writing, the sitting
American president’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, a
contemporary of Ford, was one of those numerous corporate
financiers of Hitler?

These are questions that historians
are obligated to ask, and I do, and in History
Uncensored, I offer answers to those questions—or at
least plausible explanations which may not be “right” in
the conventional sense, but which provide an alternative not
found in “official” versions of American history. This
work is unequivocally controversial, and it is meant to be,
but as one of my students remarked after a lively discussion
of its contents: “We may not agree with you or this
curriculum, but we will never forget this course.” For me,
the impact of the questions raised is far more momentous
than my students’ or readers’ agreement with my
answers.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from Henry
Ford is the philosopher, George Santayana, whose famous
quote is ubiquitous in history books and holocaust museums:
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to
repeat it.” Unfortunately, some students use this quote to
attempt to validate the irrelevance of studying history. The
logic goes something like: “Well, the only thing I learn
from history is that people learn nothing from history.”
At that point, Iam quick to challenge the student to
tell me what he/she personally has learned from history.
Almost always, the student discloses that she has learned a
great deal from history but also confesses that it feels
meaningless if the rest of society does not also learn
similar lessons. At that point, I hasten to remind the
student that one cannot compel society to learn from
history, but one can learn one’s own lessons from history,
and since society is comprised of individuals, what each
person learns from history has the potential to make an
enormous difference in society.

I personally feel great
empathy with the student who argues in this manner because
he is articulating frustration with a society that does not
value historical knowledge. College and university budgets
incessantly decrease funds for humanities and social
sciences while increasing them for engineering and
technological programs. Academia appears to be screaming
loudly that only the present and future matter. Whenever a
tragic event occurs nationally, one of the mosttelling
and frequently-repeated mantras is “we want to put this
behind us” thereby revealing our collective belief in the
irrelevance of the past—a place where dark, painful events
are buried, never to be unearthed and examined for their
meaning and relevance.

In my opinion, the relegating of
history to an antiquated closet of insignificance is not
only intellectually unsound but fundamentally dangerous. A
people ignorant of their own history are easily deceived and
exploited. For example, our Founding Fathers wrote and spoke
profusely of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment concept of
inalienable rights. It permeates our Declaration of
Independence and Constitution. For them, the term was
synonymous with human rightsheld by each individual by
virtue of nothing more than his/her existence. That is, one
possesses inalienable rights because one breathes air and
walks on the earth. Currently, however, members of the Bush
Administration, including former Homeland Security Chief,
Tom Ridge, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Antonin
Scalia, argue that government bestows the rights guaranteed
in the Constitution upon its citizens.

In almost every
history class I teach, I ask students to explain the origin
of their rights as American citizens. Typically, most assume
that their rights are “given” to them by their
government. It is a rare student who has ever considered
that if the government can “give” these rights, the
government can also take them away. Few traditional history
textbooks clarify the concept of inalienable rights which
has contributed, in my opinion, to several generations of
Americans who assume that the rights they daily enjoy and
take for granted are somehow bestowed by their nation’s
leaders.

It is important to understand that history
textbooks are the products of corporate media, and corporate
media, whether it be CNN, the New York Times, or Bedford St.
Martins Publishers is much more concerned with selling a
product than agonizing over accuracy. This is why hundreds
of thousands, perhaps millions of Americans, no longer
acquire their daily news from mainstream sources but rely on
alternative sources on the internet to inform them of local,
national,and world events.

Moreover, as Loewen
explains in Lies My Teacher Told Me, public school
systems are not interested in making waves in terms of
questioning the accuracy of history textbooks. Particularly
in an era of backlash against the teaching of the theory of
evolution or sex education, educators are loath to
scrutinize American history textbooks which teach, as
virtually all traditional ones do, that the United States of
America is the most tolerant, moral, non-aggressive, and
benevolent nation on earth. Insufficient detail, if any, is
offered regarding Native American genocide by European
settlers or the rabid racism that motivated them from the
moment they set foot on the continent. Few textbooks analyze
the persecution of labor and social justice movements by the
wealthy and powerful in America, or American imperialism
which came to fruition in the Spanish-American War, steadily
burgeoning throughout the twentieth century and whichin
the current moment, constitutes the fundamental lynchpin of
international relations.

To analyze these issues in depth,
which most certainly results in learning that the history of
the United States contains a very dark, as well as lighter
past, is now considered disloyal, unpatriotic, and earns the
analyst the label of “terrorist” or “enemy
combatant.” In response to these accusations, the
dedicated historian must always ask: How did this happen?
How did we arrive at such a state of affairs in our history?
How is it that we are increasingly kept ignorant of the
darkside of American history and even discouraged from
studying our history at all?

History Uncensored
asks these questions and offers responses to them evoked by
historical facts. Repeatedly, it presents historical events
which are rarely discussed in traditional textbooks and asks
the reader to think critically about them. I have taken
great pains to document the information presented in it so
that the reader may investigate the information in order to
validate its historical accuracy and also research it
further if inclined to do so.

Unquestionably, what is
presented is unsettling, if not blatantly disturbing, and
that is my direct intent. I have been and will continue to
be accused of hating America and lacking gratitude for the
benefits of being born in this nation. To this accusation I
can only call on the wisdom of the great American writer
Mark Twain who stated that “We should be loyal to our
country at all times and to our government when it deserves
it.” As I adamantly declare to my studentsof U.S.
history, I love my country dearly, but I am now certain that
my government has been and is in the process of destroying
it. Americans who genuinely revere their national heritage
do not blindly deify it, but rather, in the words of another
great American, the former slave, Frederick Douglass,
realize that “We should be lovers of our country who
rebuke and do not excuse its sins.

Numerous former
officials of the U.S. government have resoundingly
criticized it within the past five years, not the least of
whom was former Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day
O’Connor, who in March, 2006 stated that the United States
is edging ever closer to becoming a dictatorship. She
pointed to the incessant attacks on the U.S. judiciary by
the right wing of the Republican Party which appointed her
to the high court in the 1980s. “Statutes and
constitutions do not protect judicial independence—people
do,” O’Connor emphasized in her scathing Georgetown
University speech.[1]

Founding
Father and second President of the United States, John
Adams, wrote that “the historian must have no country”.
Adams meant that we must be so committed to discovering the
truth that history reveals, painful as it may be, that we
put aside nationalistic prejudice and apply the scalpel of
historical research. By doing so, we help heal, not harm,
the nation we revere. If we insist on “having a country”
when studying history, such healing cannot occur.

Perhaps
the most momentous historical event of the twenty-first
century thus far was the fraudulent selection of George W.
Bush, Jr. as President of the United States in 2000. This
abstract addresses the event and offers overwhelming
evidence of fraud and criminal behavior in the 2000
election. The reader may immediately wonder why I choose to
label the 2000 election more momentous than the attacks of
September 11, 2001. My answer is that I do not consider the
two events to be unrelated. The connection is explained more
fully near the end of the book, but the significance of both
events is that, taken together, they launched a coup
d’etat in the United States which dramatically
accelerated America’s trajectory toward empire, diverging
with dizzying velocity away from its Founders’ original
intent, a democratic republic whose purpose was to provide
for the general welfare of its citizens. What could be more
despicable?For the analytical historian, the only
appropriate response is to diligently explore the process of
the nation’s demise from the signing of the U.S.
Constitution in 1787 to the termination of that experiment
in November, 2000. Beginning with the year 1865, that is
precisely what History Uncensored intends to do.

I
emphasize that the devolution from republic to empire has
been a process and not an event. Throughout recent American
history, particularly the history of the twentieth century,
certain markers or “tipping points” have signaled the
collapse of the Founding Fathers’ experiment. One date in
particular looms larger than life for the attentive student
of history. That is 1947 when the National Security Act was
signed into law creating the Central Intelligence Agency
anda black budget, which absolved the Agency from all
accountability to Congress or the American people regarding
its activities and expenditures. During the Reagan
Administration of the 1980s, other government agencies were
allowed to create black budgets which opened the door for
unprecedented corruption in the federal government. Yet
another marker—the assassinations of John F. and Robert
Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. And then the
consummation of empire: the 2000 elections and September 11,
2001.

I contend that if one does not understand that the
United States of America in 2006 is an empire, one can
understand neither its history nor its future. To
meticulously analyze its history, which traditional
textbooks do not do, is to witness that empire taking shape.
In fact, like the correct placing of scattered fragments of
a puzzle, History Uncensored endeavors to put the
puzzle together and construct a “map” which not only
connects past and present events, but causes them to make
perfect sense.

One imperative I offer the reader before
beginning the journey through the book is: Please remove
rose-colored glasses. Be willing to entertain new
definitions of loyalty, patriotism, and national pride. What
you will learn there is not pleasant, nor is it
unparalleled. My intention is not to portray the United
States as uniquely evil. Nor do I wish to portray other
modern regimes as exclusively honorable. Unquestionably,
Stalin of the Soviet Union and Chairman Maoof China
behaved despicably and murdered millions of people in the
name of the communist cause. Have other nations behaved as
badly or worse than the United States? Absolutely. But I do
not live in those nations; I live in the United States. My
obligation, indeed my duty as an American citizen, according
to the Constitution, is to dissent when I see its principles
of liberty violated. For as Jefferson wrote, “Dissent is
the highest form of patriotism.” More recently a similar
maxim has become prominent among activists in American
society: “Dissent protects democracy.”

Perhaps
what Americans most need to understand is that their nation
is not “special.” We have been taught to mouth
platitudes such as “America is the greatest country in the
world” or “people all over the world sacrifice
everything they have, including their lives to come here.”
From the days of the Puritans who viewed the New World as
“a city set on a hill” or “a new Jerusalem” or “a
light unto the world,” Americans have been enculturated to
believe that other countrieshave dictatorships, but we
don’t; that other countries are imperialistic, but we
aren’t; that other countries have corrupt elections, but
we don’t; that other countries torture and maim prisoners
of war or their own citizens, but we don’t; that other
countries perform lethal scientific experiments on their own
citizens, but we don’t; that other countries would incite
and conduct wars for natural resources or commercial markets
abroad, but we don’t.

In my own personal history, I have
ancestors who fought in the American Revolution, some who
were conductors for the Underground Railroad, and others who
were members of the Ku Klux Klan. I wish that I could
eliminate the reality of the latter, but I cannot. History,
like the individuals who make it, is remarkably complicated.
It contains the good, the bad, the ugly, the indifferent,
and everything in between. I passionately contend that as
Americans we must reverethat in our history which is
extraordinary, honorable, praiseworthy, and yes, unique, yet
at the same time, we must be willing to comprehend the long
and tragic journey away from those incipient virtues to the
depraved ground on which we now stand.

Some readers will
undoubtedly label this work “conspiracy theory”—an
accusation which I no longer take seriously given the fact
that conspiracies do happen every day of our lives and that
the “conspiracy theory” allegation is so unremittingly
utilized as an attempt to marginalize arguments which
question or confront “official history.” As
investigative journalist, Mike Ruppert is fond of saying,
“I don’t deal in conspiracy theory; I deal in
conspiracy fact.” A former Los Angeles Police Department
Narcotics Investigator, Ruppert has become known to many as
an “information cop”, a term which refers to law
enforcement investigative procedures, where pieces of
evidence are gathered and configured, so that when the
configuration is sufficiently indicative of who might have
committed the crime, the evidence is presented to a district
attorney or a grand jury. An information cop relates
similarly to information. I encourage the reader of
History Uncensored to become his/her own information cop
and carefully examine the pieces of evidence there,
configure them, or as we say, “connect the dots”, and
draw one’s own conclusions.

Indeed, I have selectively
included certain historical events and omitted others. I
have done so because like any other historian, I have an
opinion, and unlike some historians, I see history “going
somewhere”, and where it appears to be going is more than
a little disturbing to me. Present, past, and future are
inextricably connected and, in my world view, constantly
influence each other. I firmly believe that we cannot
understand current issues of global climate change,
theend of the age of hydrocarbon energy, the events of
September 11, 2001, the current wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the globalist economy which is in the process
of obliterating national economies, including our own, the
draconian evisceration of the Bill of Rights of the
Constitution of the United States, the proliferation of
poverty, prisons, and people without health care, to mention
only a few national and planetary perils, unless we
incisively examine the historyof our nation, particular
from the end of the Civil War to the present moment.

History Uncensored is meant to supplement, not replace,
any textbooks or readings required by the institutions in
which it is being utilized. The reader may be astonished at
what is omitted in this work, but please bear in mind that
my intention was not to write a history textbook covering
every historical event from 1865 to the present, but to
insert events that are typically excluded from traditional
textbooks. For example, I have written little about the
actual events of World War II, but I offer details regarding
the Pearl Harbor attacks, the triggering event of
America’s involvement in the war, and the role of the
United States in the world in the aftermath of the war and
the war’s effect on the U.S. domestically. For this
reason, I have chosen to refer to the work as a
curriculum abstract.

Whether one is a student in a
formal class of U.S. history from 1865 to the present,
whether one is a history teacher, a lover of history, or an
activist, U.S. History Uncensored is a fascinating
and provocative story of how America became the nation it is
today, told from a perspective one is almost guaranteed not
to find in traditional history textbooks. In other words,
this is a history class the reader will not fall asleep
in.

How did we arrive where we
are now: American society dominated by corporations and
their interests, an economy based on war and the weapons
industry, trillions of dollars missing from federal
government agencies, the annihilation of our civil liberties
and the shredding of the U.S. Constitution, the dumbing-down
of America and the reduction of our educational system to
the lowest common denominator, Peak Oil—the best-kept
secret in America, and the polarization of economic
prosperity and quality of life?U.S. HISTORY UNCENSORED
offers a non-traditional account of our history that answers
these questions and superbly connects the dots between
current events and their ultimate roots. As carefully-
documented as it is opinionated, this book provides a
perspective that assists the reader in navigating
America’s precarious present and its faltering
future.

*************

Carolyn Baker, adjunct professor of history
and Managing Editor of From The Wilderness
Publications, hosts her own website at www.carolynbaker.org where the book can
be purchased and where she can be
contacted.

*************

Mapping The Real Deal is a column on
Scoop supervised by Catherine Austin Fitts. Ms Fitts is the
President of Solari, Inc. http://www.solari.com/. Ms. Fitts is
the former Assistant Secretary of Housing-Federal Housing
Commissioner during the first Bush Administration, a former
managing director and member of the board of directors of
Dillon Read & Co. Inc. and President of The Hamilton
Securities Group,
Inc.

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